In this sermon, the preacher tells the story of Nathan confronting King David about his sin. Nathan uses a parable about a rich man who steals a beloved lamb from his neighbor to illustrate David's own sin of taking another man's wife. The preacher emphasizes the importance of repentance and the need for the Word of God to convict and bring about change. He also highlights the role of the Holy Spirit in convicting and hounding individuals who have strayed from God. The sermon emphasizes the need for genuine remorse and restoration in the face of sin.

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771, or calling 903-963-8626. None of these messages are copyrighted, and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends. What happens to the church when preachers no longer preach against sin? That's a long title, but a necessary one. Let's pray. Lord, we not only love your word in this church, we devour it. We devour it, because it's meat, it's life, and it brings truth, and it brings freedom and deliverance. We're delivered by the truth. We're set free by the truth. The Holy Spirit, unless you come and anoint the truth, it has no life. The letter in itself killeth, but the life, the Holy Spirit gives that word life. Holy Spirit, come and give life to the word. This afternoon, we pray for everyone in this building that not one person shall be untouched by the word, but we're not here to prove anything. We're here only to manifest the word that you've given to us, to preach it with all authority, and we pray for your power and your unction to come forth. Lord, nobody, let nobody be unreached by what you're trying to say. You have a message for us. You're trying to say something to every individual in this building, and I pray, Lord, you accomplish your will. Sanctify me so that the word that comes forth will come out of a pure heart and lips that are sanctified by the fire of the altar of God. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Now, King David committed adultery with the very beautiful, the Bible calls her very beautiful, Bathsheba. Couldn't have been too many weeks later that she sent a note to the king. It said, David, I'm with child. I'm expecting your baby. Of course, her husband, Uriah, is off on the battlefield with Joab, the general of Israel's army. And of course, David's in panic now, absolute panic, because this man, the writer of over 3,000 psalms and songs, this man who was the very instrument of God and an illustration to all mankind of a great heart for God and communion with the Lord, is thinking about not only his reputation, but God's reputation as it is connected to his. And he knows what is ahead. So David concocts or conceives a cover-up plan for this affair that he's had with Bathsheba. And David sent to Joab saying, send me Uriah the Hittite. Now, Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, is one of 37 of David's mighty men. He's not just an ordinary man, but I'm sure that when Joab says, the king is asking for you back in Jerusalem, would you please take a convoy with you and go back and see what the king has to say, I'm sure Joab suspected something. Joab knew David very, very well. He knew about his lustful heart very, very well. David calls this young soldier to his royal residence, and he has military conversation with him. And it goes something like this, according to scripture, how is your general, how is Joab doing? And then he says, well, how are you doing? I'm doing well. And how about all your comrades on the battlefield doing? And this young man, I'm sure he's sitting there thinking, why me? What is this all about? I'm just an infantryman. And the king has got me here in the palace and asking me, who am I? I don't know if David was, or Uriah was suspicious. I don't know if coming in, he'd picked up some of the court intrigue and the gossip that goes around. It's been that way from the very beginning of time. Those are connected to royal palaces, the gossip, the intrigue, and he may have heard, I don't know. The Bible doesn't say. But this young soldier is now sitting in the presence of the king, wondering what's happening. David said, you've had a long battle, you're weary. He says, why don't you go home and rest for the evening? And he said, by the way, I'm going to send one of my servants to your house with a good stash of food. And just rest up before you go to the battle, because I may have you take a message back to Joab. And David watches the young man go, and he's got it all figured out. I'm off the hook. All he has to do is spend one night with his wife, and I'm clean. I'm clear. I can put this pregnancy on him. David said to Uriah, go down to the house and wash your feet for her. Yes. David was dumbfounded the next morning because his servants come and say, you know, Uriah didn't go home last night. Uriah didn't go at all. And the next day, David, so dumbfounded, he goes to Uriah and he said, Uriah, didn't you come a long distance? Weren't you tired and weary and dirty? Why didn't you go to your house and your wife last night? And his answer had to have pierced David's heart. Listen to his answer. Joab, my general, and our army is sleeping in open fields. Why should I go to my house, eat and drink and lie with my wife? I'll not do such a thing. And here's David being convicted of his sin because of a man more righteous than himself. His panic grows and he's commander-in-chief. So he says, stay one more night. And he invites him this night into his royal table and he plies him with food and good wine so much so he gets him stone drunk. Can you imagine this holy, godly man, this preacher of righteousness, getting one of his soldiers drunk? His idea is, well, if he's drunk, we can carry him to his bed. So he tells his soldiers evidently, he says, get him home. And he goes to bed and he said, well, that did it for sure. He wakes up the next morning because the Bible said that at evening, speaking of Uriah, he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his Lord and went not down to his house. He stayed in the guardhouse with the servants of David. David wakes up the morning, this next morning, and now he's in real panic. You see, when you cover up sin, it gets deeper and deeper and deeper and the lies get bigger and bigger and bigger. You know, you brought home the flowers, she didn't believe the flowers. You brought home candy, she didn't believe the candy. And then finally you just tell the whopper of your life. David proceeds to take drastic action and he writes a letter to Joab, but he seals it and hands it to Uriah and it's his death warrant. It's a command to the general of his army to put Uriah in the front line in the hardest battle to kill him. David says, I want him dead. And this unsuspecting hero, who's giving his life blood to fight for his commander-in-chief and for Israel, unsuspectingly hands to Joab his own death warrant. Now, it's hard to conceive that such a godly, righteous man could fall so awfully deep in sin, a righteous, godly man. And even today, with all we hear about rape and murder and violence, this stands out in all of history as one of the greatest falls, the worst falls in all history of humanity, because he was so high, so close to God, and had such a testimony. Why do you think the world laughs when a certain TV actress and her husband, he's caught in the act of adultery, and this nice lady on television, everybody, all the heathen world, mocks at him because they had such a testimony for family values. And the fall was so great in the eyes of the people. Here's a man so close to God, a man so passionate for righteousness, and yet he falls so deep into sin. Now, Bathsheba's baby dies. You remember the story. The baby dies. This is in the 12th chapter of 2 Samuel. Tell you what, turn to 2 Samuel and leave it open on your lap, because we're going to be going to that in just a moment. 2 Samuel, the 12th chapter. All right? Now, Bathsheba mourns for her husband. That's seven days, according to the law. And David waits till the, you know, after the baby dies, and then after fasting, he washes himself and comes back, and then he calls for Bathsheba and takes her to wife. One of, I think he'd already had five. This is number six. And she joins David's harem. She later gives birth to four boys to David, including Solomon. But for an entire year, this man, David, after he'd murdered Uriah, shows no sign of repentance, no remorse, visibly. After all, he's got this justification that his sword didn't do it, because he told Joab, he said, well, after all, the sword devours one as well as another. He said he was in a battle in the war, claimed soldiers. There were others that died with him, and he justified it. David may have taken his sin lightly, but God didn't. The Bible says the thing that David did displeased the Lord, displeased God. But thank God that David had a pastor who did not fear man. Nathan, his pastor and prophet, was not afraid to expose sin in his flock, be it the king himself. Now, I want to talk, this is the, I'm getting to the heart of my message now. What happens to the church when preachers no longer preach against sin? Of course, God is angry with David, but he still loves this man. You know, you can be deep in sin and God still love you. He loves the whole world and you can't get away from his love. You will never get away from his love. God loves the most vile, wicked sinner on the face of the earth. He has this great abiding love and always will. But Nathan knew everything that David had done. God had revealed it to him. He knew exactly all the details. He knew everything, but he hadn't said anything as yet. But it grieved this pastor that someone in his congregation was living a lie. There was somebody in his congregation known for righteousness and holiness hiding this hideous thing called murder. There's a murder. And how many times did Nathan weep as he looked about in the house of God and David, arm in arm with Bathsheba, sitting there praising God and worshiping the Lord in the tabernacle. And this grieved this man. It grieved him that all of the wicked and the heathen were mocking, saying, David's God is easy on sin. David's God must be very, very weeny because David takes, he murders a man and he takes his wife and there's no sign of repentance. He didn't even say, I'm sorry. Let me tell you what I believe about preachers who expose sin and how it should be done. This is the crux of the message now. I had a letter from a Christian who told me, brother Dave, you have to hear brother so-and-so. I won't mention his name. He's the red hottest holiness preacher in America. He hates sin. Point is he come down hard and said, you've got to hear him. So I get his tape. And all I hear on this tape is an angry tirade against external things. There were no tears. There was no mercy. There was no reconciliation. There was no grace to it whatsoever. It sounded like a man on a soapbox, just trying to get across something, laying heavy burdens on others, upon which I believe he never lifted a finger himself. You can tell from the attitude and the way he was preaching his message. I don't believe that David stormed into the presence, or Nathan stormed into David's palace, or into his residence with his arms flailing and screaming like a madman. Red hot neck, veins sticking out. You've all heard of the bony preacher pointing, or the prophet pointing a bony finger at David and said, scream at him, you're the man! That's not the way it was at all. David had broken a holy commandment. He had sinned against three commandments. The Bible said you should not cover another man's wife. He'd covered another man's wife. Thou shall not steal. He'd stolen another man's wife. Thou shall not commit murder. Thou shall not kill. He'd broken all three of these commandments. And he was covering it. It was all covered. My Bible says, be sure your sinner finds you out. And this prophet knew all about it. And he goes to David and he uses a parable, just as Jesus did later. He used parables. He used wisdom. He used kindness. But his heart was breaking. I've had preachers, young preachers come to me and say, Brother David, tell me how I can preach holiness in my church that's really pleasing to God. How do I deal with sin in the congregation? I've got so many people divorcing, so many people living in adultery, so much going on in the church. And I don't want to drive them out of the church in that I know my responsibility before God. And I've told young preachers time and time again, your congregation will listen to anything if you do it through tears. If they know your heart is broken, you're not trying to beat them over the head, but you're trying to accomplish repentance through the grace of God. And yet the word of the Lord has to come like a two-edged sword, but you had better have it in a velvet glove. Nathan uses a parable with David. He uses a story that said there was a man who had a great flock of sheep and a lot of herd of cattle, and he had a neighbor who had one little lamb. This neighbor's lamb was a pet in the household. In fact, the Bible says of it, this pet was loved by its owner. It lay in his bosom. It was like a daughter to him. It was a little female lamb, and he raised it and fed it and loved it and petted it, and it was just like a daughter, part of the family. This rich man with all the sheep all over the field has a visitor coming, a sojourner visiting in his home, and rather than send a servant to get one of his sheep out of his vast herd, he sends him to that neighbor's house and steals the one lamb, the pet lamb, has it killed and dressed, and feeds it to his sojourner friend. David goes ballistic. I tell you in the name of the Lord, he's dead. He's a dead man, and he's going to restore fourfold according to the law. That was it. You restored fourfold, whatever you stole. As the Lord liveth, that man that hath done this thing shall surely die. He shall restore the lamb fourfold because he had no pity. In my mind, I pictured Nathan against the wall, tears rolling down his cheek, and he turns. Now, the Bible just says, he says, thou art the man, but there's so much more to it, I'm sure. I see Nathan turn to him just trembling and weeping. David, David, don't you understand? I'm telling your story. You stole, you've got five wives, you stole a man, had one little lamb, she was his little lamb, and you stole the lamb. You had no pity on this man. You sent him out the battlefield, and you killed him so that you could steal his little lamb, and hit David all of a sudden. David just began to break, and when you listen to David's writings during this time, he said, my bones are breaking. He said, I don't sleep. I cover my bed and my pillow with tears. All the Holy Ghost had been hounding him, speaking to him. You can never walk away from God and go out and sin without the Holy Ghost hounding you night and day. There's a hound from heaven. You can't get away from it. Nathan exposes to David every detail of his sin. I don't believe he's screaming. The Bible said he spake unto David. Now, folks, this past week, I read and reread that account, and the Holy Ghost wouldn't let me get out of this, out of David's room with the prophet. The Lord said, I've got something here for you and for the church, and I want you to stay with it. And I looked at it for hours, and I would come down, and Gwen would say, how you doing on your message? And I said, man, I'm just not getting through. I can't get out of this one thing. And it went on and on, and I came down and said, honey, I'm in a panic. I'm not getting this. And the Lord said, stay with it. I'm going to get it. And all of a sudden, I began to praise the Lord and cry out to him from the depth of my heart. I was in my study. I said, oh God, please be as loving to me as you were to David and send a prophet to me when I have sin that needs to be exposed. Would you be as good to me as you were to David? Will you be as faithful to me? Because the greatest gift of mercy God ever gave David was to send a prophet and say, you're the man. It was the greatest gift of mercy ever shown in David's life. And I said, oh God, if I'm ever in a place of compromise, put me under the preaching of a prophet. Put me under the preaching of a man who's not afraid to preach against sin. God, put me under Holy Ghost conviction. And then God said, now you're getting it. This is the whole truth about this whole scene here. That God's greatest gift to his church have men staying in the pulpit who don't fear the face of men. Preachers who preach and not afraid of the financial consequences of strong preaching. Not afraid to lose. Not afraid to offend rich man. Not afraid to have the man who's been there for 50 years and owns the church. Not afraid of a deacon board or an eldership. Not afraid. Now he's not flaunting anything, but the Holy Ghost is moving on him. And God has shown him, said like the prophet Nathan, and he says, I can't live like this. And he grieves over it. He stands and he ministers the word of God and he opens it and Holy Ghost conviction comes. I thank God for Nathan's for fearless preachers who refused to overlook the sins of the congregation, who saw the difference between the holy and the profane and show the people iniquities according to the prophets. I've met people who once attended Times Square church. I'll meet them on the street. I'll meet them somewhere. I'll say, hi, I haven't seen you in a long time. Did you, do you still come? Oh no, I've been Times Square church two, three years. I used to go. I said, well, what happened? To honest one lady, she said, Mr. Wilks, I can't handle anything negative anymore. I had to find a more positive environment. You're too negative. I asked another individual, what happened? He said, I just can't handle the kind of message that comes from your Pope. I can't handle it. I just, it makes me unnerved. He went on and on. He says, I just have to tell you, honestly, I can't handle that kind of preaching. Now folks, I don't for a minute think this is the only church preaching truth in New York. Not at all. No, no, never. But I want to tell you one thing, the most dangerous thing you can do if you've got sin in your life is to be placed in a place where you can never be convicted of your sin. That's a judgment. Can I go on? One lady wrote and said, I hate to open your newsletters. He said, you're always making me feel uncomfortable. She said, you need to soften your messages some. Another said, I can't serve a God like yours, always poking into the soul to expose stuff. That's the work of the Holy Ghost. I'll tell you what, I thank God for that. I thank God for that piercing work of the Holy Ghost. I have a question. Where would David have ended up if Nathan had not reminded him of his wickedness? If Nathan had been afraid to face David in his sins, what would have happened to David? And that's the question. What happens to the church when there are no Nathans in the pulpit? What happens to the church? Now, Nathan knew that David could kill him. He was a monarch. He could speak the word and David could, David flew off the handle many times and he knew David could be tripped off. And he said, I don't care if it costs my life, I'm going to face David. I'm so glad Nathan didn't say, well, I'll pray for David. I'll be his friend. I'm always there if he needs me. Why should I point out something that the Holy Ghost can deal with? Folks, if all you've got as a pastor is your buddy and you want to play ball with him, I don't want to play ball with you. I want to stand at the judgment seat of Christ beside you, knowing that he's going to embrace you and that we have preached the truth to you and you've been transformed by that truth. I can't hit a ball anyhow. All right, let me tell you what happens, what could have happened to David and what happens to the church or to individuals who do not want to be reproved. They just don't like hard preaching. They don't like, and by the way, folks, that word hard preaching, if somebody is probing against your sin, that's real grace preaching. That is real grace. That's the love of God. Not going to sit by and let you go to hell. First of all, David would have fallen under the worst judgment known to mankind. And that's for God to give a man over to his sins. See, David had already gone a year now. It's getting a little easier and easier to justify it. No one has preached the sermon. Nobody has come to him. And it looks like he survived it. He's still winning battles on the battlefield. Joab has won a great battle. Everything seems to be going well for David. But you see, where there's no convicting word, no correcting word, there's no conviction. Where there's no conviction, there's no godly sorrow for sin. Where there's no godly sorrow for sin, there's no repentance. And where there's no repentance, hardness sets in. Hardness of heart. And it's easier to get a hard heart in the church than anywhere else, sitting under a gospel, if you don't respond to it. The worst judgment possible is to be turned over to your sin. No more dealings of the Holy Ghost, where a man can commit adultery and steal and murder and justify it all. I wonder how many there are sitting in this congregation right now. You've drifted away from the Lord. You were once so hot for God. You had fire burning in your soul. You loved to hear preaching that convicted you. And now you're comfortable. You're lukewarm. That fire, that blazing fire for Jesus, that heart that yearned, that worrying of the Holy Spirit is not there anymore. Something is missing. You're drifting. You're going further and further away from your first love for Jesus. You know it, and people around you know it, because you're allowing things in your life that 10 years ago you would have not even dreamed possible. Compromise after compromise, a deterioration of character, deterioration until materialism, things of the world have taken the place of prayer and the reading of the Word of God. Occasionally you'll just drift through this book and you you'll dabble in the Word of God, but you don't have that intensity for the Word of God. You don't spend quality time. Have you spent in the past 30 days, even half an hour a day, or 15 minutes a day in the presence of God alone with him? Paul wrote a reproving letter to the Corinthian church, and he pointed out that they were excusing sin and they were getting easy and compromising against sin. And Paul wrote, I rejoice not that you were made sorry by my letter, but ye sorrowed to repentance. For you were made sorry after a manner, for godly sorrow worketh repentance. The rebuke, his outcry against their compromise, had produced a godly sorrow in the people. There would have been no sourness if that message had come. There would have been no repentance until that sharp, piercing word of Paul the apostle came and anointed by the Holy Ghost. And Paul said later, he said, I spoke strongly to you. I'm paraphrasing. I spoke strongly to you and I named your sin. I sought to put you under conviction of the word of God and I wooed you with tears, not because I was angry with the one who sinned, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you. He said, the reason this kind of message comes forth, the reason the Holy Ghost comes and sometimes pounds and knocks so hardly, it is God showing you his care and his love. He said, I have nothing to prove. I'm confirming to you that I preach this because I love you and I don't want to see you lost. If a pastor loves his congregation, he will not spare. Paul said, I was not in a rage. I'm not trying to unnerve you or to condemn you. I didn't threaten you. I didn't abuse you with my preaching. I exposed sin in you so that you'd know how much God loves you and how much I love you. David had spent this whole year going about his business, worshiping God and still hiding what he had done. This is the end of side one. You may now turn the tape over to side two. I counseled a brother who I suspected and I had reason to suspect was living in adultery and he said, no, no. And I said, OK, I accept it. And that precious brother, a month or so later, came weeping, just broken before God and repentant. He said, Brother David, I've been in hell. I'm in hell. He said, I've gone beyond pain. And I knew that there was genuine brokenness and repentance before the Lord. In words to this effect, I couldn't get away from what I heard. I couldn't get away from the messages, from the truth that was burning in my heart. And it was kind of a thank you, pastor. Thank you, pastors, for not letting up and caring enough to sometimes just come down and name the sin publicly. God's restored him. He said, I lied to you and I lied to God. I was living in adultery. But he said, that's all in the past now. And oh, how thankful this man was, weeping and broken. I thank God for truth that wouldn't let me go. He said, I got up in the morning, I faced it. Laid down at night, I faced it. The word kept coming back that had been preached from this pulpit. Hallelujah. A sister in Christ wrote, Brother Dave, I've been married to my husband for over 20 years. I love him, but I'm going to have to probably leave him, even though I don't want to. I couldn't find out why this man, a Christian who goes to church regularly with me, would begin to deteriorate so much in character. He became very dishonest. In fact, he became a stranger to me and my family, our family. I couldn't put my finger on it. I prayed, I did everything to try to understand why my husband was coming apart. And then I found out that he'd been hooked on pornography ever since we've been married, and before. He claims to be a Christian, though he goes to church, he says he's not going to give it up. Now, here's a man that sits in church. Do you think for one minute, a man who's about to lose his home and his children, his wife, a man who claims to be born again and on his way to heaven and sitting in the house of God, do you think that man just needs a little pat on the back and say, everything's okay, you're okay, Jesus loves you? What does he need? He needs a fire of the Holy Ghost built under him. He needs the word to come down like a hammer on his soul. He needs to be wakened up. This is what the woman prays for, that somehow in the house of God, some kind of convicting, piercing message will come like an arrow from heaven and pierce his heart and convict him of his sins. If you're drifting from Christ and you're lukewarm, the worst thing you could do is to be settled into a church where there's no powerful, convicting word of the Lord of God. And folks, if you can't find a church, I would leave that kind of a church, but if there's no other church around, if you have to go to that kind of church, you better be in the word of God and being convicted by the Holy Ghost by reading diligently this book. You ought to have your own family, only a little church in a secret closet where you say, oh God, turn the searchlight on, see if there'll be any wicked way in me. And secondly, if Nathan hadn't ministered to David and pointed out his sins, he could have ended up like Saul, his predecessor, spiritually dead with no Holy Ghost guidance, a loss of intimacy with the Lord. Now, when Nathan came to him and shook him to the core of his soul and said, now with the man, I know David's remembering another prophet going to King Saul. David was there. David knew all about it. He remembers Samuel and his warnings to Saul. And he remembers that half-hearted repentance of King Saul who said, I have sinned. But he didn't say sinned against God. He just said, I've sinned. It was a half-hearted repentance. David was there when God departed from Saul because the Bible says he rejected the word. He rejected the reproving word of the Holy Ghost. He rejected the prophetic word from a godly servant, a man sent to him. And because he rejected the word, the scripture said God, in fact, he ends up with the witch. In front of a witch, he makes this confession before an apparition of Samuel. Samuel, God has departed from me. He doesn't answer me anymore, neither by prophets nor by dreams. What shall I do? David is thinking of the Spirit of God having left King Saul. Suddenly, it hits him. God's no respect your passions. Here's another prophet in another time, and I've sinned like Saul has sinned. Oh God, he cried, don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Like you took it from Saul is what he's saying. Oh God, don't cast me away from your presence. I don't want to be a Saul. Oh God, I repent. God, I've sinned against you and you only. No, the repentance comes because David knew if he didn't repent, if he didn't get out of it now, he could end up not ever hearing from God again. The Bible makes it clear the Lord was departed from Saul. He left him because he knew that there was no reproof. There was nothing that would ever hear. Nothing would get through because he so despised reproof. He so despised that kind of preaching. God says, all right, there's nothing I can do for this man anymore. No way my grace can reach him because he's hardened his heart. I tell you the greatest act of God's mercy and grace to David was to give him a Nathan. And God's greatest mercy to any congregation, to any church is to put man in that pulpit who are not afraid to deal with sin. Hallelujah. Now, one writer suggested that even in spite of David's repentance, that you hardly hear from him anymore. He just seems to fade away and he went into great detail. You don't hear of any great victories. You don't hear of great battles. David just seems to have faded into the background and he just merely exists until his dying day. I disagree with everything in my soul. That is not according to scripture. And that was a well-known writer. Now, you know, David paid the consequences. Remember, he said that you're going to restore fourfold. He prophesied his own judgment. He said four lambs have to be replaced. And David paid with four lambs. Bathsheba's baby, Ammon his son, Absalom his son, Adonijah his son. He paid with four of his own lambs. And the Bible says the wages of sin. Yes, there are wages of sin. But I'll tell you something where there's true, absolute repentance. There is absolute reconciliation and restoration, total restoration. I believe in Joel's prophecy where there's genuine repentance. You don't end up like a Saul, a castaway, not hearing from God. My Bible makes it very clear that when you rend your heart and turn back to the Lord, your God, that's repentance. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and repented him of the evil. And you know what he says then? And I've preached it many times in this pulpit. Then I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten the canker worm. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied. You will praise the name of the Lord, your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never be ashamed. You see, God had already pronounced judgment on this people, but they had repented. And now he said, I'm going to deal marvelously with you. I'm going to do wonderful things with you. I'm going to restore to you. You don't restore anything to me. You don't make it up to me. I'm going to make it up to you. I'm going to restore everything the devil took away from you. Folks, if I can't believe that, I can't stand here and preach the gospel. If I don't believe God can take you out of the depths of your sin, drugs, alcohol, pornography, adultery, anything, and I see genuine repentance, I'm not going to tell you that you're going to spend the rest of your life fading away. You're not going to become us all. No, God said, I'll deal wondrously with you. I'll bless you and bring you back into my favor. Hallelujah. If I sound excited, I genuinely am. Yes, I'm excited about the restoring work of the Holy ghost. Look at these rows of drug addicts, alcoholics, converted girls over here. You can stand up after you're saved and repent and say, I am not a drug addict. I am not an alcoholic. I'm a child of the living God with all the rights of heaven in my soul. No longer under condemnation and guilt. I'm a free man. I'm a free woman. My past is behind me. I don't have to pay for it. Now, Jesus paid it. He said, he's going to restore everything to me. If you think David has faded out in his last days, listen to this. In his last days, David said, the Lord's my rock. My fortress, my deliver, and him will I trust. He's my high tower, my refuge, my savior. Doesn't sound like a man fading away to me. My God heard my voice. He took me. He drew me out of great waters. He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me because he delighted in me. Hallelujah. Isn't that wonderful? We just read the thing that God, David did displease the Lord. And now here's David saying he delights in me because this is what made it David, a man after God's own heart, because he so quickly, truly, genuinely repented of his sins. Hallelujah. Now, in closing, let me read you some of these scriptures. He that regardeth and receiveth reproof shall be honored. You'll be honored if you love and regard and obey godly reproof. Proverbs 130, they despised all my reproof. They shall eat the fruit of their own ways. Their turning away shall slay them. Said you turn away from reproof. You put a deaf ear to reproof. It'll kill you in the end. It'll destroy you. Proverbs 623, reproofs of instruction are the way to life. Reproof that instructs you will bring you to life. Will you stand? It just dawned on me. Something dawned on me. I'd like to share it with you for just a minute before we close the service. I wonder how many of you wouldn't be sitting here this afternoon. You've been coming to Times Square Church for a long time. And God got ahold of you. God cleaned you up because you got convicted. Boy, did you get convicted. I don't know what sermon. I don't know what service. I don't know who was preaching. But God dug down deep into your soul. You repented or you wouldn't be here now. You'd be long gone. I'll tell you, that's something to thank God for. Thank God. You say, brother, what you just trying to keep us in your church? We don't have a membership here. I've always believed if the Holy Ghost can't keep you, how can how can a little card keep you? Let me tell you what the Holy Ghost is after. The point of this message now. All right. Why preach a message unless God has a point to prove? And here's the point I believe the Holy Ghost wants to prove. That if you have sin in your life, I don't have to name what it is right now. Sometimes he does that. He'll bring a whole message on on one subject sometimes like adultery or fornication or that. But God's just as much interested in digging away the covetousness, the pride, the lying, the stealing, all of these things that are deep, deep in our spirits. But the one thing God will not endure is the hiding of sin and the covering of sin. Because he has all the grace and all the power to give you overcoming victory over everything that the enemies put in your life. And that's what this whole day is about. Freedom from the power of sin so that you don't have to be driven by lust. You don't have to be driven by your sin, but you can come to him in total repentance and say, Lord Jesus, I'm no match for what I'm going through. I'm also talking to those this afternoon that have been. And this was on my heart this morning and we had a tremendous response. But there are different people here in the service this afternoon. Are you one of those? Now, listen closely. Here's where the Holy Ghost begins to really dig. And I'm asking the Holy Spirit to come and make my words like an arrow into your heart. If you're guilty only to change you. Are you here right now? You worship with us. You may be from this church. You may be visiting. We had a lot of people, but a balcony and all over this building here. Are you one of those who have just been slowly drifting and growing less and less intense with the Lord? The intensity is not there. The fire is not there. You say, oh, I'm resting in grace. Resting in grace. My belief is that if you're not seeking God with all your heart, you're going to have a very difficult time. He said, you draw nigh to me, then I'll draw nigh to you. It's this drawing nigh. It's this fighting against the spirit of the age. It's resisting all the things that come our way. And so that little by little, the things of this world don't pound and hit and suck and drain all the life of the spirit out of you. If that's you, make it right. We don't count numbers here. I couldn't tell you how many come in any service. None of us can. But if the Holy Spirit's dealing with you while we're singing a chorus, and this is not mood music. This is just time to give you a little time to think about it. And the Holy Spirit touches you. Come and let me pray with you right now. Humble yourself before the Holy Ghost. Humble yourself before the Lord and say, Lord, there's something in this message that was just for me. Lord, I want to be reproved by your spirit. I want to accept it. And I want to apply it to my heart. Up in the balcony, go to the stairs on either side. Come down any aisle. I'm here in the main floor. Just get out of your seat and come. We'll pray with you and believe the Lord. If you're not right with God, if you're not saved, if you're backslid, if you're running from God, are you lukewarm or are you cold? I want you to come. If God's speaking, don't come unless the Spirit of God is speaking. But if you speak in your heart, come and join these that are coming now, please. A life-changing work in them, that you will remind them of the great love of the Heavenly Father, that all that you ask for is that we come to you with a repentant brokenness. And Lord, you will heal us. You will restore everything that's been robbed from us by the enemy. And Lord, you'll give us a new beginning. For those, Lord, that have grown cold or lukewarm towards you, revive their spirits now, I pray, that there be a reviving of their hearts, a returning to their first love for you, Jesus, and a wooing of the Holy Spirit that you would... They would just follow that wooing. They would come as you draw them by your Holy Spirit. I want you to pray this prayer with me now, if you will. Now, this prayer doesn't mean anything unless it comes from your heart. So open your heart to the Lord right now. Right now, pray this with me. Jesus, I come to you the only way I know how, in simplicity, confession, repentance, and hope. Forgive me, Jesus, for everything in my life that displeases you. Dig deep into my heart. Show me my sins. Show me my iniquities. Show me everything that would hinder me from having communion with you. I want nothing of sin in my life that would mar the presence of the Lord in my life. Forgive me, Jesus, and cleanse me, and draw me by your Holy Spirit. Draw me to your own heart. Encourage me, Lord. I need hope. I need peace in my heart. I need to know that you're near me. Lord, like David, I confess my sins. I turn from them, and I turn to you with all my heart. Now, let me pray for you. Heavenly Father, we believe now that you hear every word that we speak, that we don't pray into the wind. It doesn't fall in front of our faces to the ground. But your ear is open to those who cry in earnest. And the Lord said, if we know if he hears us, we have the petition we ask of him. Now, Lord, I pray that you come down in this service now. Lift the burden and guilt of sin. Lord, let there be genuine repentance. Lord, it doesn't have to be a river of tears, but it has to be a broken contrite spirit. It has to be one who acknowledges, I have failed God. I have not given him the time. I've grown weary of the way. Lord, don't let there be any weariness in us. Lord, there are many that have not come forward, but something is happening in their heart even as I'm praying. They know when they walk out of here that there's going to be a change, that there's going to be a cry in their heart, oh God, don't let me drift. There's going to be a wooing of the Holy Spirit all the way home to their apartments. You're going to woo and speak and say, I will draw you, but you must respond to me. You must respond to my drawing and to my love. Thank you for this, Father, in Jesus name. Amen. I want everyone who came forward, just thank the Lord in your own way. Give him thanks. Thank you, Jesus, for your absolute faithfulness to me. God is good. God is faithful. Hallelujah. This is the conclusion of the tape.